Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama's Economic Policy

The appointment of Jason Furman, 37, a former Clinton administration official who is a visiting scholar at New York University, immediately met
with skepticism from some who have faulted Wal-Mart for being stingy toward its workforce.

Wal-mart has a image problem and is working overtime in an effort to correct it. They have been accused of paying low wages, forcing employees to work
off the clock, meddling in US presidential campaign, costly healthcare plan, hurting other businesses, being anti-union, hiring undocumented
immigrants to clean its stores, gender discrimination, and the list goes on and on. This website
will provide more info on some of the problems that are contributing to Wal-mart's poor image.

Mr. Furman has defended Wal-mart's business practice and wrote this
paper or essay titled Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.
An interesting article detailing how Wal-mart helps low income family more in the form of lower prices despite paying lower wages. What I find
interesting is this part...

More puzzling is that some progressives have described
Medicaid, food stamps, the EITC, and public housing assistance as “corporate welfare.”4 The
right response to Wal-Mart is not to scale back these programs but to expand them in order to
fulfill the goal of making work pay.
1

Considering Senator Obama has said he would like a collection of different views and perspectives to offer input into his decision making process I am
not taken aback by a single advisor having expressed unpopular views and don't think we can instantaneously make the leap and paint Obama with the
brush of a single advisors view on a given topic ...ditto for McCain's economic advisors...and he has some odd ducks as well.

I guess the fact that WalMart business practice is sending jobs overseas is not an issue.

I guess not providing workers with better healthcare while making millions in profit is not an issue.

This is the business model Jason Furman defends and on top of that he thinks that government should provide more assistance via corporate welfare so
that businesses that use the WalMart model can continue to pay low wages. But I guess that is not an issue either.

a single advisors view on a given topic

Mr. Furman is not just a single adviser. He is the top economic adviser for the campaign.

Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama’s choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top
economic advisor for the campaign.

During a question and answer session, Obama was asked about the anti-union Wal-Mart. "I won't shop there," he said. Obama has criticized
Wal-Mart for how it deals with its workers. His wife, Michelle, sits on the board of TreeHouse Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier.

Obama has said that he is for higher wages, favors workers right to join a union, wants to keep jobs from going overseas, and wants better healthcare
but then goes out and gets a top economic adviser who defends a company that is doing exactly the opposite of what Obama favors.

And you tell me that this is not an issue. Yes, I am sure he will get input from other economic advisers but ultimately his top economic adviser will
tell Obama which way to go. Otherwise why hire Furman as his top economic adviser. I really don't think Obama has the experience of an economist.

As for your personal vendetta or threat feel free to dig and make your own thread on anything you want about McCain advisers. That is your right. It
is also my right to post what I feel is a real issue. You have the power to ignore this thread if you feel that this isn't your cup of tea.

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